The Riots Are Without Reason
Let's start with this, the riots, and even the peaceful protests, are stupid and unjustified. This is due to the fact that there isn't a reason for them in the first place. Supporters of the riots espouse the idea that rioting is in fact justified, because George Floyd was killed by a racist police officer, and that this reflects a larger systemic problem in the American criminal justice system. This view is simply not accurate. George Floyd was killed by a moron; not a racist. In fact, there isn't a shred of evidence to support the narrative that George Floyd was killed because the perpetrator was racist; it makes ZERO sense to assume otherwise. When a white person dies at the hands of the police, the general presumption on the part of the public is that there wasn't intent on the part of the officer(s) involved unless there is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that there was. By assuming that Floyd was killed because his killer was racist, you are implicitly ascribing a motive, and therefore intent to the officer involved. So that has to lead you to thinking: why are we deviating from the regular framework of assessment? Isn't it arbitrary and nonsensical? Perhaps one of you can provide me with an explanation, but I doubt it.
However some of you may still find the riots justifiable on the grounds that even though there may not be any demonstrable racism in the Floyd case, there is a broader problem of systemic racism in the criminal justice system which needs to be addressed aggressively. This is also not true, and does not appear to be born out in the relevant statistics. For example in police confrontations with perpetrators of violent crimes, 4/10,000 white people are killed, compared to only 3/10,000 African Americans. Obviously, this one statistic is not a good proxy measure of systemic racism in the criminal justice system; I would be stupid to claim otherwise. I am merely showing it to you because I get the sense that many people on this website base their misconception of the police as racist, on the pretense that black people are killed at a far higher rate in police confrontations than white people are per capita. It isn't so. If you still want to assert that there is systemic discrimination in the criminal justice system, the onus is on you. If you're making the positive claim, then be prepared to adduce evidence that can support it. Until I see such evidence, which after conducting a bit of my own research I have not, I have no reason to believe that the criminal justice system is racist.
So now why I don't see a reason for these protests in the first place. There is no evidence that Floyd's killer was racially motivated, and although I am obviously not going to do an extensive statistical analysis on the matter, there is no reason to believe that the criminal justice system is racist on the grounds that it claims more black lives than white. The protests, and the riots are arbitrary. So what are the implications of this? To be honest, I think they're pretty dismal. If you're a supporter of these protests on the grounds highlighted above: that Floyd was killed because of racism, then you will support violent riots in response to LITERALLY any fatal mistake the police make that costs a black person their life. It will happen again. There are hundreds of thousands of black people who commit crimes, and hundreds of thousands of white police officers. Another mistake of this nature is inevitable. If the prevailing logic is always to presume that racism is to blame in such incidents, even in cases like this, where there isn't even evidence supporting the presence of a racist motive, we will never know peace again. All in all, the riots are stupid and evil; they should be condemned as such. There is absolutely no justification for them whatsoever, and I challenge anyone to demonstrate otherwise.
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